I thought the insurrection clause was a hard reach, but it feels really buttoned up when you take into account the discussions. Like I don’t even see any maneuvering room. Which kinda sucks because I had emotionally accepted he was going to be the nominee and now I have hope.
What’s really interesting is, what if he stays off the ballot in CO but wins the race? He’s be the President of the US but ineligible to be President in CO. Seems like an actual constitutional crisis unless the SCOTUS ruling automatically removes him from every state.
If SCOTUS rules that trump can be removed from the Colorado ballot there will be a domino effect that will see him removed from a large number of other states.
There’s zero chance of a 2nd trump term if SCOTUS rules that way.
That’s not exactly true. Unless some battleground states remove him from the ballot it doesn’t matter what the states who were going to vote blue do. He wasn’t going to win there anyway. As a Colorado voter I would put us in that category. Trump’s not winning CO no matter what happens in this case.
Surely if the supreme court ruled that if he wasn’t eligible in one state then any single person in other states could use that ruling to have him removed from any state they live in?
Based on what I read from discussions of the amendment passing at the time in the documents above, it sounds odd but it might be the case. Again IANAL, but they added a clause in the amendment that specifically says something to the effect of congress can make laws to enforce this. The idea being if they didn’t have that clause the power would be assumed to automatically devolve to the states, because of the part of the constitution that says any powers not delegated specifically to the federal government go to state governments. So basically there’s at least one interpretation here where unless congress makes a specific law enforcing the provision, it would be up to specific states to implement as they saw fit. I think it’s most likely the supreme court weasels out of this whole thing somehow still, but there might be a chance something like that could happen.
It could end up with SCOTUS deciding states have the full right to decide what candidates they allow (has historical backing) but they would probably also need to argue that invalidation as a candidate in a minority of states doesn’t invalidate their power as an elected president, or else it gets very very complicated fast.
I thought the insurrection clause was a hard reach, but it feels really buttoned up when you take into account the discussions. Like I don’t even see any maneuvering room. Which kinda sucks because I had emotionally accepted he was going to be the nominee and now I have hope.
What’s really interesting is, what if he stays off the ballot in CO but wins the race? He’s be the President of the US but ineligible to be President in CO. Seems like an actual constitutional crisis unless the SCOTUS ruling automatically removes him from every state.
If SCOTUS rules that trump can be removed from the Colorado ballot there will be a domino effect that will see him removed from a large number of other states.
There’s zero chance of a 2nd trump term if SCOTUS rules that way.
That’s not exactly true. Unless some battleground states remove him from the ballot it doesn’t matter what the states who were going to vote blue do. He wasn’t going to win there anyway. As a Colorado voter I would put us in that category. Trump’s not winning CO no matter what happens in this case.
Surely if the supreme court ruled that if he wasn’t eligible in one state then any single person in other states could use that ruling to have him removed from any state they live in?
Based on what I read from discussions of the amendment passing at the time in the documents above, it sounds odd but it might be the case. Again IANAL, but they added a clause in the amendment that specifically says something to the effect of congress can make laws to enforce this. The idea being if they didn’t have that clause the power would be assumed to automatically devolve to the states, because of the part of the constitution that says any powers not delegated specifically to the federal government go to state governments. So basically there’s at least one interpretation here where unless congress makes a specific law enforcing the provision, it would be up to specific states to implement as they saw fit. I think it’s most likely the supreme court weasels out of this whole thing somehow still, but there might be a chance something like that could happen.
It could end up with SCOTUS deciding states have the full right to decide what candidates they allow (has historical backing) but they would probably also need to argue that invalidation as a candidate in a minority of states doesn’t invalidate their power as an elected president, or else it gets very very complicated fast.
Congress can vote to forgive him, so there’s a path to him legally becoming president against (although obviously they shouldn’t)
Congress can barely vote to keep the lights on. I’d get out the popcorn for that one.